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Andusia News

Posted on: 25th May 2018

What Could a Plastic Incineration Tax Mean to RDF Waste in the UK?

It has been announced this week that the UK government could be considering adding a tax to waste companies which incinerate plastic waste. While Andusia supports the waste hierarchy and the idea of encouraging plastic recycling, we also believe that it is important that an “incineration tax” is not introduced under the guise of increasing plastic recycling.

The introduction of tax penalties for incineration needs to be very carefully considered as to how this might affect the macroeconomic factors in the waste market. The energy from waste market in the UK is in a delicate balance, and a new tax could destabilise the construction of new, and much needed, UK infrastructure of energy from waste facilities in order for the UK to move away from waste to landfill.

Since China’s recent ban on accepting many plastic wastes from UK and Europe, the UK has seen a large increase in the amount of plastic waste with an uncertain outlet and very low value.